“The State of Your Psyche”: Black Conceptualizations of Mental Health

Abstract

Using structured-tabular thematic analysis, this study examines Black people’s conceptualizations of mental health in response to the following question: What is mental health? Sixty participants reported an array of interrelated characteristics pertaining to mental health. Five themes were identified across participant responses, including: (a) Overarching Orientation to Mental Health, (b) Integrated Parts of a Whole, (c) Dynamic Balance, (d) Existentialism, and (e) Locus of Control. Implications influence how researchers and mental health practitioners may better address mental health with Black clients.

Pronouns and experiences of misgendering among nonbinary Black womxn.

“…However, usage of both pronouns remains important. Time or temporality regards the fluctuation of pronouns as frequent as the day-to-day time unit (Kerney, Hargons, Peterson, Cannon, et al, 2024). This fluidity of pronoun usage reflects the fluidity of NBBW gender identity (Kerney, Hargons, Peterson, Orphe, et al, 2024).…”

“…This study asserts the importance of queer and racially affirming psychotherapeutic interventions (Adames et al, 2018) in active challenge to the colonized practice of Western therapy. We assert the importance of decolonized approaches to healing work, which honor and integrate the healing wisdoms of Afro-Indigenous cosmological thought and the importance of balance, interconnectedness, and reciprocity in wellbeing (Kerney, Hargons, Peterson, Cannon, et al, 2024; Mullan, 2023). Talk therapy, which inevitably relies on language, then, is inherently limited in its approach to healing work, particularly with TNB gendered-racial persons (e.g., NBBW), whose existence is in direct challenge to binary, restrictive, colonized conceptualizations of being and knowing (Kerney, Hargons, Peterson, Orphe, et al, 2024).…”

Nonbinary Black womxn gender identity: Blackness between and beyond the binary.

“…The preparation of this manuscript revealed the futility of concretizing fluidity, thereby encouraging the use of decolonized qualitative approaches to empirical study (Adams, 2014). NBBW describe employing this fluidity strategically, in response to internal (i.e., emotional labor; self-preservation) and external (i.e., threats to safety) stimuli (Saunders, 2022), and can be measured using the dynamic stability of the day-to-day time unit (Kerney et al, 2024). Accordingly, fluidity is not only central to the essence of the NBBW, but is also a site of experiencing, navigating, and resisting oppression .…”

Introduction to the Special Issue: Dismantling Anti-Black Racism and Counseling Psychology

“…In the first article, Kerney et al (2024) present a culturally informed understanding of mental health as informed by a qualitative examination of a sample of Black American adults. The findings provide a window into the pivotal role of culture and societal oppression in the definition of mental health based on the lived experiences of its participants.…”